In February, President Donald Trump called for the U.S. Department of the Treasury to stop minting new pennies. The directive was one of a dizzying torrent of executive orders issued by the new administration on everything from immigration to transgender athletes. Like with many of those edicts, it’s unclear whether the president actually has authority to cancel coins — legal scholars think it’s probably up to Congress. But unlike Trump’s divisive attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion or the U.S. Department of Education, retiring the penny might be something (the only thing?) most Americans would agree on.

For starters, pennies cost more to make than they’re worth — nearly 4 cents, to be exact. As more transactions occur digitally, cash is increasingly going the way of the half cent, which Congress discontinued in 1857. Bottom line: It’s getting hard to justify the expense. Also, Canada stopped minting its penny in 2012, and we certainly wouldn’t want to look foolish just as we start a bitter, intractable trade war with our closest ally. Right?

To commemorate the apparent end of the penny, we commissioned artist Sean Metcalf to create the cover of our annual Money & Retirement Issue. It depicts a scene at the Lincoln Meadows retirement home, where a handful of elderly pennies are enjoying deserved respite after a life, ahem, well spent.

One day many years from now, old pennies might turn up in the vault at the state’s Unclaimed Property Division and actually be worth something — maybe 3, even 4 cents. The Office of the State Treasurer returned more than $5 million in forgotten money and goods to Vermonters last year, but millions more went unspoken for.

Some of that unclaimed cash is from tax returns sent to wrong addresses. One way to avoid that situation: Don’t pay your taxes! Granted, you could get in serious trouble. But there is growing interest in tax resistance as a form of protest against the Trump administration as well as the U.S.’s role in the war in Gaza.

Did you file early but now wish you hadn’t so you could stick it to the man? Fret not. As Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk continue their cost-cutting campaign across the federal government, there will likely be no shortage of things to protest. Like, for example, the federal cuts and freezes that threaten the local food movement.

Amid rapidly rising food prices, increased cost of living and resulting food insecurity for many Vermonters, those cuts come at a terrible time. On the bright side, community-funded meals are helping restaurants and food businesses feed those in need. That generosity gives us reason to smile, as does a proposed pilot program to help recovering addicts fix their teeth, which can improve their employment outlook .

With any luck, local food producers and others affected by federal cuts can recoup some of their lost funding through other means. One possibility: tapping into the cadre of young, progressive Vermonters with generational wealth who are giving it away.

Note to those folks: Hi!

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This article appears in The Money & Retirement Issue 2025.

Dan Bolles is a culture coeditor at Seven Days. He joined the paper in 2007 as its music editor, covering Vermont's robust music, comedy and nightlife scenes for a decade before deciding he was too old to be going to the Monkey House on weeknights to...